


Brownies and Birch Trees

by Confused_Tortoise



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Survivor Guilt, Veronica saw like 4 people die, i guess there is a major character death, no one walks away from that ok, set right after JD blows up, since it's... heathers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 02:11:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11244168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Confused_Tortoise/pseuds/Confused_Tortoise
Summary: Heather Chandler is gone. Kurt and Ram are gone. JD is gone. Veronica remains.





	Brownies and Birch Trees

There is a giant crater in the middle of the football field. A smoldering, five foot deep crater. Burning grass and clods of dirt and things that Veronica tells herself are definitely not remnants of JD are scattered in a 20 foot radius around it. Logically, the destruction makes sense, but she didn’t realize how messy explosions could be. Veronica bites her lip and balls her fists as teachers and students and--oh god--police rush around her. 

She has to leave. She has to find Martha or Heather or Heather. She has to talk to someone or she will go insane. 

Veronica stumbles away from the crater and finds Martha by the edge of the crowd. “Martha! I need--I need to tell you that I’m sorry--” and Veronica divulges everything she needs to say. Except, of course, what needs to be said. 

That she is a murderer. A killer. The kind of person that inspires horror movies. In twenty years there will be a film about an insane high school girl who poisons her friend and shoots the quarterback and blows up the love of her young life. But these are things she can’t think about, much less talk about. So she holds Martha’s hand tighter and asks about movie night and begs for everything to go back to normal.

 

The police interrogate her. She is the only one living witness, after all. Veronica makes up a bullshit story about a suicidal JD and being ‘too late’. She throws in some tears and pretty convincing hysterics, though honestly, she just feels numb. The police accept the story and chalk JD up as yet another victim of whatever has been making Westerburg students drop like flies. 

It’s funny because she has been the snake in the grass the whole time.

Veronica knows that she will be caught eventually. Whether it’s in two weeks when the police realize her connection to all the kids that died suddenly in the past year or in twenty years when she finally loses it, it will happen. But she’ll be damned if she doesn’t try to outrun that while she can.

Later, after she’s hugged her parents and cleaned up and is out of her ripped, dirty, evil clothes, Veronica laughs until her voice is hoarse.

 

Three days afterwards, Veronica hears that JD’s remains were cremated. It makes sense, and she smiles at how JD would have loved that. It’s Monday, and Westerburg is… normal. Well, not normal, like a regular high school that didn’t experience four deaths in the last year, but as normal as Westerburg can be. Students still mill around in a fog of hormones and defensive cruelty, the Heathers still talk by the lockers and freak out freshmen, Ms. Fleming is still preaching about whatever cause she’s picked up. Then Veronica notices the anti-suicide pamphlets pinned around the hallway. She sees how more people are actually listening to Ms. Fleming. She sees how Martha’s casts are too bulky and the Heathers seem incomplete and quieter and Kurt and Ram are gone and suddenly it’s too much.

Veronica escapes to the bathroom. She leans down to splash water on her face. When she stands back up Heather Chandler standing behind her in the mirror. Heather places a hand on her shoulder. It’s cold.

“Did you really expect everything to be okay? Did you think that JD would blow up and all your problems would go away? Really?” Heather says, leaning closer to her ear. Her nails dig into Veronica’s shoulder. “Because people don’t just miraculously recover. You know you're going to be haunted by me forever. I’m going to be next to you when you die, just like how you were there for me.” 

Veronica shoves the spectre away and rushes out of the bathroom. When the bell rings and students file off to classes, Veronica joins the ranks of the normal and the unaffected.

 

The school newspaper is being shut down. The football field needs funds to be fixed, and the newspaper was deemed unimportant. Some people -- mostly Peter Dawson and the newspaper club -- were upset. The front page of the last issue read “Last Death of the Year” and bemoaned how the school is causing one more thing to flicker out of existence. Betty and Martha organize a bake sale to raise funds and bring in last minute newspaper readers, hoping that if people care the school will ‘see the light’. Veronica buys a brownie and tries to talk to her friends. They’re nice, they’re always so nice, but it’s not the same. 

Veronica doesn’t think it will ever be the same, really. But there’s only a few more months of high school left and she just needs to survive that long. She keeps thinking “If I get out of here, if I leave all of this behind, maybe I’ll get better.” 

Clearly, it’s a lie. 

Clearly, she doesn’t care.

Veronica eats her brownie and says goodbye to the people she’s known all her life. The ‘Save the Newspaper’ banner is too colorful and bile rises in her throat. If there’s one thing she’s learned this year, its that if someone wants to kill something, no amount of love or support could stop that from happening.

 

It’s the Saturday after JD died, and Veronica is standing in front of Heather Chandler’s grave. There’s a copious amount of lilies and roses and red carnations around her gravestone. Veronica kneels in front of the flowers and clutches the cold marble.

“Heather, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I know I’m the worst. I kind of caused your death, after all,” Veronica snickers and pushes back her tears. “I don’t know how to fix this, but please, forgive me. Kurt, Ram, if you two are out there too, leave me be. Please. I just want to feel okay again.” And for the first time since JD was blown into burning chunks of jacket, Veronica lets herself cry. And cry. And cry. 

After she's cried enough to feel numb again, Veronica stands up. She leaves the grave and the mourning flowers behind. Heather follows her, the click of her designer shoes echoing in her ears. Kurt and Ram are yelling somewhere in the distance. Cigarette smoke hangs in the air and Veronica sees JD’s silhouette under a dying birch tree. 

All Veronica wants is to be okay.

She will never be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> Did you know that birch trees symbolize new beginnings and hope? I didn't.
> 
> So... this is the first work I have ever published on this site. Please leave comments, I have no objective point of view on my writing and I really want to improve. Even if this is the worst thing you have ever read, comment! I just need to know what to work on. 
> 
> Thank for reading! :)


End file.
